This 2008 installment in the adventures of National Park Ranger Anna Pigeon combines Nevada Barr’s signature nature writing with thrilling action and chilling psychological suspense.
The novel takes place on Isle Royale National Park, an island in Lake Superior, in the dead of winter. Anna is flown into the snowbound park, which is closed to tourists during the winter months, to join a group of scientists studying the three packs of gray wolves that make ISRO their home. Homeland Security considers ISRO a potential path for smugglers and terrorists and is threatening to shut down the decades-long research project by opening the park to tourists year-round. Before that happens, Anna hopes to learn something about wolf management, a challenge her home park in Colorado will soon be facing. Instead she ends up investigating the suspicious death of a researcher, who herself was investigating the suspicious death of a wolf.
